Three Years Later...

Corey here....

It has been three years since we first applied with our adoption agency to begin this process.  At that time, they were estimating that from the time we completed all of our paperwork (which we did in April 2011), it would take about 7-11 months before we received a referral.  It has now been almost 30 months since we finished all of that paperwork and we still have not received our referral.  Never mind the “why” of that time increase – processes have changed and the wait has just increased and we are still very happy with and thankful for our agency.  It is the same across the board for all that are going through the adoption process in Ethiopia as far as we know.  We are certainly not alone in this. 

 In some time with the Lord recently, I was lamenting that I was sick and tired of all the waiting.  This was not the first time I had expressed that, both to the Lord and to others.  However, this time the Lord had a word for me and it was this, “Not as sick and tired of it as she is.”  Don’t read that and hear it in a tone that is accusatory or guilt-laden.  It was gentle and sorrowful and convicting all in one – I asked the Lord’s forgiveness.  It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with being tired of the wait, it was that my weariness had a competing object: myself.  Don’t get me wrong, there is constantly this agony of knowing that my daughter waits for me, but now something else had crept into the picture.  It was simply that I began to feel a right to be tired of waiting because of what I was going through and not because of what she was going through.  Whatever stage of life she is currently in, she is either in or soon will go through a valley that is shadowed.  She will struggle to develop, to attach, to be heard, to be comforted, to be cradled and several other things that no child should have to experience. 

 I have heard and read the adoption stories of many others and read clinical and instructional books and articles on adoption.  One thing I am learning:  part of the calling of an adopted parent is to suffer your child’s story alongside of them.  The problem is that it is easy to believe that begins when your child comes home.  The truth that the Lord showed me is that it begins when you say “yes” to adoption.  We are suffering her story right now with her even though we haven’t even seen her face.  We are waiting just like she is and we agonize with what she is or will be going through.  We grieve because of what she experiences before we are able to bring her home - not for us, but for her.  Our story as a family has already begun because we are sharing these moments.  We long for the day when she comes home and we can share in a new chapter or our family’s story.